Rob's Forum Topics

Over the past week, I had a hard time making the decision to wait for a sale or to pull the trigger now on a new band saw, but today I bought the Grizzly G0513X2BF. After it was all over, I discovered that the trigger pull was smoother than I anticipated and my wallet fired flawlessly. So flawlessly in fact that I pulled it twice more. Once for ...

Last weekend I sold my Craftsman 14” BAS350 band saw as I am upgrading to a bigger saw. So for now, I have no Band Saw. After doing a lot of research, reading of reviews and knowing what I have to spend, I’ve decided the saw I will be buying is the Grizzly G0513X2BF . Not wanting to spend more than I need to to get what I want, yeste...

I’ve decided I am going to buy a new band saw and I’ve researched many of the top brands. Obviously features and money are the two biggest factors in my decision.
I decided on buying from Grizzly because you get just as many features at a lower price point than the other brands. I also have a Grizzly 15” planer, dust collect...

I have very little experience with scroll sawing. I have a DeWalt DW788 Scroll Saw and I am making numerous plaques (picture below) that require several circle shaped cuts about the size of a half dollar, along with numerous straight cuts. I have been making these cuts using my bandsaw and it does ok but I have to finish the design using a templ...

I need to make some templates for use on my router table. Specifically, I am making 30 star badge plaques out of Oak. They are 6 point stars with round tips like in the drawing here and about 15 inches wide and tall and 3/4” thick. I went to HD and I couldn’t find any material that was suitable. They had 3/16” hard board that l...

I’ve used band saw blades on my Craftsman (Rikon Clone) 14” band saw as small as 3/16” up to 3/4” depending on what I’m sawing but I wanted to make some tighter curves is a few plaques I’m making. So I bought a 1/8” Carter band saw blade to accomplish this. I set things up the same way I have set up ever...

I have a Ridged Belt/Spindle Sander but recently I have been looking at adding a benchtop 6 inch Belt/10” Disc Sander to my arsenal. The reason is to sand larger Band Saw Boxes that the Ridged sander just isn’t big enough to accomplish easily. A wider belt is really what I’m looking for to accomplish this task. To justify the p...

Have you ever had what was seemingly a good piece of lumber turn out to be a miserable you know what? I had a rough cut 5/4 Cherry board, 7 1/2” wide by 6’ long that was at least 15 years old that I cut up into 18 inch lengths for a project I wanted to get started. There was some twist but nothing to write home about and there was so...

I’m going to retire in 2 years and my wife will retire in just under 3 years. We are fortunate that we both have State Retirement plans and will be ok financially (hopefully) But there will be a need to earn extra money to support my woodworking addiction. My game plan is to sell at Craft Shows. Before we retire, I will buy all the necessa...

I would like to try flocking the drawers of some of the band saw boxes I’ve made recently but I have never done it. I’m confused as to which type of flocking to buy. On the flockit website, they list two types. Suede-Tex and Soft Flock. For those of you that do flocking work, which should I buy for my intended use? Thanks!

Today I went to a local historical museum that had all sorts of things from Jamestown, NY where I was born and still live today. From wrenches made by the old Proto and Crescent Tool companies that once graced this city to Lucille Ball wedding photos to Desi Arnaz to memento’s left by Abraham Lincoln when he stayed here. They also had some...

For those of you that pulled the trigger on the Craftsman BAS350 Band Saw like I did shortly after it became available or those that are thinking about it, I just wanted to let you know that after less than a year of light usage, I had a lower wheel bearing go bad. From what I’ve been reading, this is quite common on the Rikon saws too. It...

I have a Grizzly G0691 Table Saw and the worm gears, angle stops, and the mechanism that raises and lowers the blade gets gunked up after a while and it makes it hard to make adjustments leading to inaccurate settings, like when when returning the saw to square, raising/lowering the blade or setting an angle. I tend to clean most of the gunk out...

I’m not sure what the problem is and I’m hoping one of you will have an idea. I have a Grizzly G0453 15” planer that a couple years ago I upgraded with a spiral cutterhead (Grizzly version). It worked great with no problems whatsoever. Recently though, when I pass boards through it, every board regardless of species gets hung u...

I have a dilemma and I’m not sure how to go about making this cut. I bought a new 27 foot camper and it has an opening in a section of the wall that is 28.5” in diameter. I want to get a 32” (diagonal) HDTV and most of them measure just under 32” in actual width when factoring in the bezel. As with most campers, the ̶...

Hello all,
My wife and I are going to be jumping into the craft show business next Spring, starting out slow to see how things go at shows that are close to home (Western NY-North Western PA). If we do enough business to cover our costs and make a few dollars that would be great. If not, we won’t have all that much invested. Our primary...

Over this past weekend, my wife and I went to two different Fall Festival Craft Shows here in Western, NY. As a woodworker, I found myself drawn to any vender site that had wood products for sale. There were two venders (one at each show) that were selling cutting boards as their main product. At one, the boards were not sanded to a smooth finis...

I made up some mineral oil and beeswax for the cutting boards I make and it cooled to a very nice paste, similar to a Vaseline consistency. Is it better to apply it when still warm and in liquid form or wait until it’s cool and apply it as a paste? thanks for your thoughts!

I have made a gumball machine based on the picture below. For those of you who have made this version or one that is similar, did you glue the pieces together or use screws so it can be taken apart for cleaning or some other method to keep everything together? Your replies are appreciated!

I bought a Phenolic Zero Clearance Insert for my Grizzly G0691 Table Saw from them shortly after I bought the saw in 2008. Although the ZCI works, it was milled wrong. I can’t raise the blade all the way up because the cutout for the quick release riving knife that this saw has, is in the wrong location. Has anyone else purchased one of th...